The Birth of a New Advertising Medium
09/29/2009
Filipinos will always remember Sept. 26, 2009 for two things:
1. The destruction that typhoon Ondoy brought to the country
2. The boxed meals for the typhoon victims from presidentiable Manny Villar – with matching ‘subtle’ message
This new advertising medium from Villar’s bright boys is undeniably much, much cheaper that a TV spot on the Kapamilya or Kapuso channels… and if the trend catches on… I would like to ‘pre-visualize’ (without permission, of course) what other candidates will come up with:
Sometimes, a little laughter can let a lot of sunshine in…
Bwahaha! A personals ‘posting’ on Craigslist…
09/07/2009
To the Guy Who Tried to Mug Me night before last.
I was the guy wearing the black Burberry jacket that you demanded that I hand over, shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend threatening our lives. You also asked for my girlfriend’s purse and earrings. I can only hope that you somehow come across this rather important message.
First, I’d like to apologize for your embarrassment, I didn’t expect you to actually crap in your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. The evening was not that cold, and I was wearing the jacket for a reason.. my girlfriend had just bought me that Kimber Model 1911 .45 A CP pistol for my birthday, and we had picked up a shoulder holster for it that very evening. Obviously you agree that it is a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head … isn’t it! I know it probably wasn’t fun walking back to wherever you’d come from with that brown sludge in your pants. I’m sure it was even worse walking bare footed since I made you leave your your shoes, cellphone, and wallet with me. [That prevented you from calling or running to your buddies to come help mug us again].
After I called your mother, or “Momma” as you had her listed in your cell, I explained the entire episode of what you’d done. Then I went and filled up my gas tank as well as four other people’s in the gas station on your credit card. The guy in the big truck took 150 gallons and was extremely grateful! I gave your shoes to a homeless guy in Luneta, along with all the cash in your wallet. [That made his day!] I then threw your wallet into the big “plate No.8” SUV that was parked at the curb … after I broke the windshield and side window and keyed the entire driver’s side of the car.
Later, I called a bunch of phone sex numbers from your cell phone. Globe just now shut down the line, although I only used the phone for a little over a day now, so what’s going on with that? Earlier, I managed to get in two threatening phone calls to the PSG’s office and one to the NBI, while mentioning President Glo as my possible target. The NBI guy seemed really intense and we had a nice long chat (I guess while he traced your number etc.). In a way, perhaps I should apologize for not killing you … but I feel this type of retribution is a far more appropriate punishment for your threatened crime. I wish you well as you try to sort through some of these rather immediate pressing issues, and can only hope that you have the opportunity to reflect upon, and perhaps reconsider the career path you’ve chosen to pursue in life.
Remember, next time you might not be so lucky.
Thoughtfully yours,
Dennis
P.S. Have a nice day!
(Something I picked up from the web. Enjoy!)
A London Guide for the Le Cirque Gang
08/27/2009
Nobu Mayfair Nobu Berkeley St is located at 15 Berkeley Street in the heart of Mayfair. The critically acclaimed Nobu Berkeley St is now one of London’s most fashionable restaurants and has also been the venue for some of the capitals most high profile parties. Located over two floors, Nobu Berkeley St which was designed by celebrated designer David Collins is open for lunch and dinner and houses a suitably glamorous 200 cover restaurant and a stylish, yet relaxed lounge bar with a licence until 2am.
Claridges Unforgettable fine dining in London’s most luxurious restaurant Welcome to the exclusive world of Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s where you can experience exquisite world-renowned cuisine. Lavishly redesigned by New York architect Thierry Despont, Gordon Ramsay restaurant at Claridge’s retains its beautiful Art Deco features. Gordon Ramsay presents enticing modern European dishes.
The Ivy “Still Theatre Restaurant No. 1, the hot, post-theatre table everyone wants to nail. But what is it exactly that gives the Ivy its unique edge? A clubby, timeless room with virtually no bad tables; a kind of imperceptible attitude of noblesse oblige so that, once seated, Joe Collins gets the same treatment as Joan or Phil Collins, and food that is consistently good and not overpriced. A typical post-show dinner might be dressed crab followed by calf’s liver and bacon – simple and unpretentious.” Jeremy Wayne, Tatler 2009
Bibendum Dining at the Restaurant is a visual feast as well as a treat for the tastebuds. During the day, light streams through the spectacular stained glass windows, and the high-ceilinged Restaurant buzzes with reassuring activity. Comfy chairs and well-spaced tables add to the feeling of space. The evening brings with it a sense of elegance and glamour, and the right combination of welcome, attentiveness and professionalism has been honed to perfection over the Restaurant’s 20-year history. Dining at the Restaurant always feels like a special occasion.
Hakkasan Hakkasan feels like a cinematic vision of the sexiest nightclub you’d never been to. Often imitated but never bettered, Hakkasan’s design divides the bar, with its team of cocktail shakers and soundtrack setting DJ, from the central dining area via a lacquered lattice of carved Chinese screens, from behind which impossibly glamorous waiting staff emerge to deliver dishes from a Michelin-star winning, modern Cantonese menu created by chef Tong Chee Hwee.
Abracadabra Russian Restaurant The Abracadabra Restaurant serves an authentic and eclectic menu of delicious, wholesome dishes from around the world including a wide selection of Russian & Eastern European dishes. The restaurant is space with rich decor, occupying a large area below Jermyn Street. No expense has been spared to provide a multifarious dining room featuring private dining booths – each offering its own unique experience, a large revolving table, private dining rooms and a large main dining area which can be easily adapted to house almost any function.
Yauatcha There’s something indefinable about Yauatcha. It’s part luxury dim sum restaurant, part tea-house and French patisserie. As such it is a grand assembly of the world’s most refined food. It’s perhaps fitting then that this Michelin-starred restaurant is situated on the corner of one of London’s oldest fruit and veg markets, at the very heart of Soho. Because while Yauatcha is so modern in attitude it’s also clear about the debt it owes to some of the oldest culinary traditions.
The Wolseley The Wolseley is a café-restaurant in the grand European tradition located in St James’ on London’s most famous of boulevards, Piccadilly. 160 Piccadilly is a Grade II Listed Building. We have several menus in the Grand Café tradition including breakfast, morning pastries, afternoon tea, and an all day menu with sandwiches, salads, crustacea and plats du jour.
Quaglinos From its inception by Giovanni Quaglino in 1929 to its reinvention by Terence Conran in 1991, Quaglino’s has always been the place for celebratory drinks and dining. Fashionably glamorous, the restaurant has over the decades welcomed people from every walk of life and is still the place to see and be seen.
The Connaught For many years the restaurant at the Connaught in Mayfair has been one of London’s greatest gastronomic experiences. Now, Hélène Darroze, one of France’s most distinguished chefs, is at the helm of the Connaught’s kitchens and the Connaught’s love affair with gastronomy is entering a new, exciting phase. The new restaurant in London, ‘Hélène Darroze at the Connaught’, like The Coburg Bar, has been designed by Parisian designer India Mahdavi. Hélène is inspired by authentic regional and seasonal flavours, with roots in her native Landes region of South West France. With cooking in her DNA, she worked as Alain Ducasse’s right hand woman at the Louis XV restaurant in Monte Carlo. Already the proud holder of two Michelin stars for her restaurant on the Left Bank in Paris, Hélène has recently received her first Michelin star for Hélène Darroze at the Connaught in the Great Britain and Ireland 2009 Michelin Guide. The London restaurant has also been awarded three AA Rosettes for 2009.
Top 10 bad excuses for staying in a bad job
08/09/2009
If you’re unhappy at work, I’m sure that the thought “Man, I really should quit!” crosses your mind occasionally.
So why don’t you?
Even if you long desperately to quit, to get away from your horrible workplace, annoying co-workers or abusive managers, you may hesitate to actually do anything about it, because right on the heels of that impulse come a lot of other thoughts that hold you back from quitting.
Each of these excuses may sound to you like the voice of sanity, offering perfectly good reasons why it is in fact better to stay and endure that bad job just a little longer, but look a little closer, and they don’t really hold up. What they do instead is keep you trapped in a job that is slowly but surely wearing you down.
Here are 10 of the most common bad excuses for staying in a bad job.
#1 “Things might get better”
That jerk manager might be promoted out of there. That annoying co-worker could quit.That mound of overwork could suddenly disappear.
On the other hand, things might also get worse. Or they might not change at all. If you’ve already done your best to improve your job situations and nothing’s happened, just waiting around for things to improve by themselves make little sense.
#2 “My boss is such a jerk but if I quit now, he wins.”
Who cares. This is not about winning or losing, this is your life. Move on, already.
#3 “I’m not a quitter.”
Well guess what these somewhat successful people have in common: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Tiger Woords, Reese Witherspoon, John McEnroe and John Steinbeck?
Yep, they all dropped out of Stanford.
The old saying that “Winners never quit and quitters never win” is just plain wrong and leaving a bad job is just common sense.
#4 “I’ll never get another job”
Well not if you stay in your current job while it slowly grinds you down, you won’t! Move on now while you still have some self-confidence, motivation and energy left.
#5 “If I quit I’ll lose my salary, status, company car, the recognition of my peers, etc.”
Yes, quitting a job carries a price and that makes it scary. We all know this intimately.
But few of us ask this question: What is the price of staying in a job that makes you unhappy?
That price can be very high. It can ruin your work life but also your marriage, your family life, your health, your self-esteem and your sanity. Not all at once, but a little bit every day.
#6 “Everywhere else is just as bad”
That’s just nonsense. There are plenty of great workplaces in every industry.
#7 “I’ve invested so much in this job already”
You may have sacrificed a lot of time, energy and dignity already in attempts to make things better. This will make it more difficult for you to call it quits.
I’m reminded of how Nigerian email scammers sucker in people. At first it’s a small investment, but then the amounts grow and grow. At each step the victim is reluctant to stop because that would mean losing all the money he’s spent so far.
Quit anyway. Staying on is just throwing good time after bad.
#8 “I’ll lose my health insurance.”
I have a lot of sympathy for this argument cause I recently had a major ailment.
One answer: Start looking for another job with similar health benefits.
Also: Ask yourself what good job related health insurance is if your job is actually making your sick – which bad jobs can absolutely do.
#9 “My job pays very well”
I have zero sympathy for this argument. I don’t care how well your job pays; if it makes you unhappy it’s not worth it.
Quite the contrary, if you make a lot of money now, use that financial security to quit and find a job that’ll make you happy.
#10 “Quitting will look bad on my CV”
Whereas staying for years in a job that grinds you down and goes nowhere will look excellent.
The upshot
Many of us would be much happier at work if we quit bad jobs sooner. I’ve talked to many people who have finally managed to quit a bad job and only wished they’d done it sooner. I have yet to meet a single person who quit a crappy job only to wish they’d stayed on longer.
You may have perfectly good reasons to stay in your crappy job – all I’m saying is that it pays to examine those reasons very closely to make sure that they hold up.
‘Cause it may just be the fear talking.
When the big idea of an ad is a blow job… times must be really hard for the advertising industry
07/21/2009The international advertising community is all agog about an alleged Sprite commercial which was too racy for TV.
Problem for curious souls and uzis like us… is… a) it was posted on YouTube and pulled out immediately, and 2) it was a “scam” ad that was meant to create awareness and score creative brownie points for the creator.
Gawker published the creator’s “explanation”…
Fake Sprite Ad Director Speaks: It Was Fake. Duh.
Max Isaacson, who directed the fake Sprite Blow Job Spec Ad that was too hot for the world emails: it was a spec ad. Not a real ad. Not connected to the Coca-Cola Company! Hopefully they won’t sue him now.
The video has been pulled from Youtube — “This video is no longer available due to a trademark claim by a third party” — so you will never ever see a blowjob involving Sprite on the Internet ever again.
Here’s what Max has to say:
My name is Max Isaacson,
I directed and produced the fake Sprite ads that have been making the rounds over the past five days. There have been quite a lot of false statements made regarding these and I would like to make a few things very clear about these spots. First, there was no involvement from either The Coca-Cola Company or Greencard Pictures. Second, this was not supposed to be taken seriously by anybody. They were made completely on spec, which was clearly stated on the YouTube pages on which the ads were primarily seen. I paid for, produced and directed both spots independently. I am frankly quite surprised that spots of this nature were so quickly and easily believed to be legitimate. I hope that all parties involved will understand that this was a simple mistake that went much too far too fast, and that it is now made clear that these were not real commercials, nor were they ever produced with intention of being taken as such.
Thank you,
Max Isaacson
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So… you’ll never see that ad again?
Think again.
My generosity runneth over…
The Dangers of Not Using Glutamax in America
07/21/2009
On July 16th, 2009, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor of Harvard University, was headed from Logan airport to his home at 17 Ware Street in Cambridge after spending a week in China, where he was filming his new PBS documentary entitled “Faces of America”. Professor Gates was driven to his home by a driver for a local car company. Professor Gates attempted to enter his front door, but the door was damaged. Professor Gates then entered his rear door with his key, turned off his alarm, and again attempted to open the front door. With the help of his driver they were able to force the front door open, and then the driver carried Professor Gates’s luggage into his home.
Professor Gates immediately called the Harvard Real Estate office to report the damage to his door and requested that it be repaired immediately. As he was talking to the Harvard Real Estate office on his portable phone in his house, he observed a uniformed officer on his front porch. When Professor Gates opened the door, the officer immediately asked him to step outside. Professor Gates remained inside his home and asked the officer why he was there. The officer indicated that he was responding to a 911 call about a breaking and entering in progress at this address. Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University. The officer then asked Professor Gates whether he could prove that he lived there and taught at Harvard. Professor Gates said that he could, and turned to walk into his kitchen, where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver’s license to the officer. Both include Professor Gates’s photograph, and the license includes his address.
Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’s request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’s home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.
Professor Gates was taken to the Cambridge Police Station where he remained for approximately 4 hours before being released that evening.
(Excerpts from the affidavit of the professor’s lawyer)
For once – a political ad that’s truthful!
07/20/2009I have always been scornful and cynical of political advertising.
But this cynicism evaporated when I saw this ad yesterday in the Inquirer (page A5).
I adjusted my jaws which dropped suddenly, involuntarily… and made a mental note to share this gem with all my friends who are as interested in the political scene as I am.
I salute this political party for its adherence to truth in advertising.
I admire the unexpected candor (at the bottom, it reads: Nyahaha. Joke lang. Pero huwag maging sad. May totoong good news sa sunod na page. Pramis.”)
(I will immediately refer all the candidates who come to me for creative help… to the honest agency/creative team that prepared this ad. Pramis.)
Your Daily Upper 